TODAY sees the launch of this year's Evening Telegraph Business Awards, the competition that celebrates the very best of Coventry and Warwickshire businesses.

Now in their ninth year, the awards provide an unrivalled showcase for local entrepreneurial talent and the area's best business brains.

They not only recognise and reward business achievement, they also encourage firms to strive for ever greater success in innovation, technology and commercial performance.

And this year the awards scheme is bigger and better than ever. Just as the best companies never stand still, the Evening Telegraph Business Awards, driven by demand from the local business community, have expanded.

This year there will be three new categories, making a total of 12 awards spanning an even wider spectrum of activity and creating even more potential to recognise those who generate the wealth and employment so vital to the economic health of the region.

If you think your business deserves to be recognised, enter the awards now and showcase your success, talents and products to a major audience.

The Evening Telegraph Awards are open to businesses based in, or operating mainly within, Coventry and Warwickshire.

The new awards are for customer care, export achievement, and craftsman of the year.

Entrants who don't carry off a trophy can still turn the competition to their advantage by using it to attract new business, ideas, staff and investment.

Evening Telegraph managing director Geraldine Aitken said: "We are proud to be unveiling our extended awards, especially as this year's additions will give recognition in areas so vitally important to building the kind of long-term success and stability essential to a healthy and buoyant economy."

Editor Alan Kirby said: "Partnership between the ET and all of our sponsors is the key; together we are helping to recognise the fantastic achievements of companies in Coventry and Warwickshire.

"We hope the publicity given to the awards winners will be viewed as a tribute to the companies, to their managers and, most importantly of all, to the workers, ordinary men and women whose skills are enabling this sub-region to compete with the very best."